Which Hardware should I buy ?

[MLoerke]

Hello everybody
I want to use the first time prime95. For this I would like to buy a PC which is only used for it. It's just for fun.
I have a few questions:

1)
Did I understand correctly that only the CPU is important for the performance? Or which factors are still important?

2)
Are the iters / sec the right indicator to compare the performance?

3) I just wanted to get a motherboard + CPU and power supply + RAM, that should be enough, right?

In the forum I have seen that the Intel I7-9800X @ 3.6 Ghz deliver a very good performance for a normal price. In Germany 640,00 €. Or would you recommend another CPU?

I would like to say again that this is just for fun, the PC should go through 24 hours and cost under 1000 ¬.

Thank you in advance for your help

[paulunderwood]

Originally Posted by MLoerke

3) I just wanted to get a motherboard + CPU and power supply + RAM, that should be enough, right?

You'll need storage (HDD or SDD / USB3 or SATA3) plus a wire with an on/off switch.

[MLoerke]

Originally Posted by paulunderwood

You'll need storage (HDD or SDD / USB3 or SATA3) plus a wire with an on/off switch.

okay, I was wrong. That I need an HDD and RAM is of course clear :) I need a working PC :)
Are there any things that influence the performance? Is RAM important for performance ? IS 8 GB enough ? Is the grafic card importsnt for the performance?

thank you

[paulunderwood]

Originally Posted by MLoerke

okay, I was wrong. That I need an HDD and RAM is of course clear :) I need a working PC :)
Are there any things that influence the performance? Is RAM important for performance ? IS 8 GB enough ? Is the grafic card importsnt for the performance?

thank you

RAM: "dual rank" apparently is best.

8GB is fine, but for P-1 factoring there is a gain for having more.

A super-duper graphics card is a bonus for certain tasks such a trial factoring Merennes, but beyond a 1000 bucks budget.

[MLoerke]

Originally Posted by paulunderwood

RAM: "dual rank" apparently is best.

8GB is fine, but for P-1 factoring there is a gain for having more.

A super-duper graphics card is a bonus for certain tasks such a trial factoring Merennes, but beyond a 1000 bucks budget.

Thank you for your answers. Then I will install 2x 16GB of RAM.

For the performance it does not matter which motherboard I take or?

[paulunderwood]

Originally Posted by MLoerke

Thank you for your answers. Then I will install 2x 16GB of RAM.

For the performance it does not matter which motherboard I take or?

As long as it is the better of chipsets. Someone here will tell you what chipset is best for a I7-9800X.

Don't confuse "channel" with "rank". Sure your board may well be set up for quad channel -- but using dual ranked will give you an appreciable speed up. So definitely use 4 RAM sticks and dual ranked if you can.

[ATH]

9800X supports Quad channel RAM which is the most important speed up. Make sure you get 4 of the same RAM modules, so 4x8 Gb is much better than 2x16, or even 4x4 would be preferable if 4x8 is too expensive. That is a significant speedup over dual channel (dual rank is a property of the RAM module itself).

[Mark Rose]

Originally Posted by MLoerke

Or would you recommend another CPU?

Yes. The i3-8100 paired with the cheapest motherboard and two sticks of DDR-2400 will give you most throughput per money spent, and will be a well balanced system.

[Prime95]

Ram speed is very important. Buy at least DDR4-3200. Get DDR4-3600 if it isn't much more expensive. My SkylakeX system has 4 sticks of 4GB DDR4-3600.

Motherboard is not relevant. Graphics cards are unimportant any cheap one will do.

[masser]

Originally Posted by Prime95

Ram speed is very important. Buy at least DDR4-3200. Get DDR4-3600 if it isn't much more expensive. My SkylakeX system has 4 sticks of 4GB DDR4-3600.

Motherboard is not relevant. Graphics cards are unimportant any cheap one will do.

Do most motherboards have the equivalent of "non-Z overclock" to make use of the faster ram? I would worry about buying the correct mobo to take advantage of the faster ram, but maybe I'm overly cautious?

[VictordeHolland]

Originally Posted by masser

Do most motherboards have the equivalent of "non-Z overclock" to make use of the faster ram? I would worry about buying the correct mobo to take advantage of the faster ram, but maybe I'm overly cautious?

Most high-end motherboards have support for XMP memory profiles. And Skylake-X (chipset X299) is about as high-end as it gets in consumer hardware.